We are .......

 This thanksgiving I can't help but feel abounding thankfulness and gratefulness.
     Yet - I do not even think that being thankful or grateful really even touches on what I feel.

 According to the Webster Dictionary Thankful means : glad that something has happened or not happened, that something or someone exists
  
  Grateful means : feeling or showing thanks : feeling or showing thanks to someone for some helpful act

Yes - we are thankful the Lord has led us on this journey of adoption. We are grateful for the blessings the Lord has given us along the way and we are grateful for the baby he will bless us with in his perfect timing. But we are more than just "glad this has happened." Our gratefulness is exceedingly more than us just "feeling thankful for the helpful act." To be honest - I can't possibly help but cringe at the "helpful act" part of the definition. Nothing about this is "Helpful"

 It is a choice - A choice that we know the Lord has placed on our hearts - a choice to take in an innocent baby and lay down our life for him/her. A choice to give this baby our last name and call him our own. A choice to love and care for this human life No. Matter. What. A choice to learn a new culture and embrace it as we teach our child to be proud of their culture.  A choice to 100% lay down all of our plans and fully trust the Lord will provide - provide in raising the thousands of dollars left to raise, to provide a peace in the time of waiting, to provide the baby He has chosen in His perfect timing.

It is a choice - that this baby's mom and dad will make to choose LIFE for their child. An unbelievably selfless choice to give up their child in hopes that someone else could provide a life they could only hope to give. To sacrifice their own feelings and emotions for what is best for their child. Let's be real - it would be easier to just keep a baby to raise just so we could be MOM. Regardless of what life they can provide - there is nothing EASY about choosing adoption for your child.
You see it isn't them being "Helpful" to us or us being "helpful" to them.
 It is a choice to love their child SO much that they are brave enough to let go and let us become mom and dad to their baby. A choice I cannot possible imagine making. A choice for us to open our hearts and love a baby we know nothing about - a baby that wasn't formed under my heart, but in it.

 All this to say -  I started writing this post to say I am thankful for this baby I know nothing about. I am thankful the Lord trusts us enough to be this child's mom and dad regardless of all the screw-ups He already knows we will make. I am thankful for his/her birth parents. Thankful for the choice they are choosing to make. Thankful that they for some reason in some way trust us enough with the life of their child. I am grateful for this gift of getting to be a mom to this baby. Grateful he or she will experience the love and guidance of a godly daddy. Grateful he/she will grow up seeing a mom and dad that love each other deeply. And for two sets of grandparents that are this way as well.

I am so much more than just thankful and grateful.  The thankfulness and gratefulness I feel is intoxicated, captivating, and overwhelming. I am overwhelmingly joyful. I wish there was some word that I felt truly identified my heart. But for a lack of such a word - This thanksgiving I am exceedingly thankful and grateful.

     
Philemon 1:4 - I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers,